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The Role of Professionalism and Self-regulation in Detecting Impaired or Incompetent PhysiciansMatthew K. Wynia, MD, MPHJAMA. 2010;304(2):210-212. doi:10.1001/jama.2010.945The term professional is used in various ways. A professionalmight be a certified expert, someone devoted to the continuousstudy ("practice") of a complex craft, or someone granted theauthority to carry out tasks and provide services that othersare not allowed to perform. A professional might subsume personalinterests to pursue a client's or the public's good. Or a professional,as compared with an amateur, might simply be someone paid forwhat he or she does.Given this range of meanings, questions about which occupationsare professions, and what comprises professional behavior, arelong-standing.1 Yet medicine is almost universally recognizedas a "classic" profession.2 Moreover, regardless of how professionis defined, professionalism, like other "-isms" (consumerism,humanism, egotism, Catholicism, and the like), is a belief system.Specifically, professionalism can best be understood as an ideologydeclaring an important role for professions and professionalsin organizing and delivering certain goods and services in society.
The word professional provides some insights into this ideology.To profess, from the Latin pro-fatr, means to speak forth or"to declare aloud or publicly."3 A profession, then, is a groupof individuals speaking out, together, to declare and make publicthe shared values and standards that govern their work. A professionalis a member of this group and professional actions are thosethat are in conformance with the shared and declared standardsand values of the group. These standards are usually articulatedin such public documents as codes of ethics, which aim to createan explicit covenant of trust between professionals, their clients,and society.4/.../

STOCKHOLM -- Intracoronary bone marrow cell transplantation extended survival in patients with chronic heart failure due to ischemic cardiomyopathy -- that was the good news. The bad news was that the finding was not "new" at all -- it had already been published.

Late today the European Society of Cardiology said it would sanction the researcher who reported the stem cell study by barring him from presenting research at ESC congresses for two years.

The ESC guidelines for Hot Line trials specifically state that the information submitted should be new, unpublished data. Yet, the STAR trial was accepted for presentation as a Hot Line trial at the ESC annual meeting here./.../

STOCKHOLM -- Adding margarine enriched with omega-3 fatty acids as a dietary intervention did not prevent second heart attacks in older men and women at risk for worsening heart disease, researchers said here.The study results are doubly disappointing since the margarine intervention did initially reduce events, but by 30 months the evidence of that benefit had disappeared, said Daan Kromhout, MPH, PhD, of Wageningen University in the Netherlands./.../

Friday, August 27, 2010

The Spirit Level slides (ppt)

This PowerPoint file contains 36 of the more important graphs shown on this web site and/or published in The Spirit Level. We hope you will use them in talks, lectures or discussion groups to help increase people's understanding of the effects of inequality.

The slides can be downloaded and are provided on condition you acknowledge their source. We strongly recommend that you use them in conjunction with the book which explains the relationships shown in the graphs.

Research has shown the human brain is organized into separable functional networks during rest and varied states of cognition, and that aging is associated with specific network dysfunctions. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine low-frequency (.008<.08 Hz) coherence of cognitively relevant and sensory brain networks in older adults who participated in a one-year intervention trial, comparing the effects of aerobic and non-aerobic fitness training on brain function and cognition. Results showed that aerobic training improved the aging brain’s resting functional efficiency in higher-level cognitive networks. One year of walking increased functional connectivity between aspects of the frontal, posterior, and temporal cortices within the Default Mode Network and a Frontal Executive Network, two brain networks central to brain dysfunction in aging. Length of training was also an important factor. Effects in favor of the walking group were observed only after 12 months of training, compared to non-significant trends after six months. A non-aerobic stretching and toning group also showed increased functional connectivity in the DMN after six months and in a Frontal Parietal Network after 12 months, possibly reflecting experience-dependent plasticity. Finally, we found that changes in functional connectivity were behaviorally relevant. Increased functional connectivity was associated with greater improvement in executive function. Therefore the study provides the first evidence for exercise-induced functional plasticity in large-scale brain systems in the aging brain, using functional connectivity techniques, and offers new insight into the role of aerobic fitness in attenuating age-related brain dysfunction.

In April, we released Gapminder Desktop - the tool Hans Rosling uses to present global trends.
In a new video, Hans shows how you can use the tool from your own laptop and he gives 5 tips for a successful bubble-graph presentation.

By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage TodayPublished: August 26, 2010Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and
Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse PlannerSTOCKHOLM -- Certain genetic patterns carried on the Y chromosome from father to son may hold the key to the "male disadvantage" in heart disease, researchers suggested.

Men carrying the I haplogroup within the male-specific region of the Y chromosome also carried 55% higher age-adjusted coronary artery disease risk (P=0.0002) compared with all others, Nilesh J. Samani, MD, of the University of Leicester, England, and colleagues found in pooled results of two British cohorts.

Y chromosome haplogroup didn't correlate with traditional risk factors in the study, indicating it is an independent predictor not explained by age, LDL or HDL cholesterol, hypertension, or smoking status, the researchers suggested.

"Genetic variation in the Y chromosome is a novel independent risk factor for coronary artery disease," they concluded in a presentation slated for the European Society of Cardiology meeting here next week./.../

Mental Health in Europe

Justin Frewen and Dr. Anna Datta
August 26, 2010

Students participate in a mental health awareness exercise in England.

The past few decades have seen a steady rise in the overall global burden of mental health problems. At the turn of the third millennium, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that mental health problems were at an aggregate point prevalence of approximately 10 percent of all adults worldwide, or 450 million people.

The whistle-blower website WikiLeaks on Wednesday posted what it said was an internal CIA report into the perception that the United States exports terrorism, but one U.S. official said it does not divulge spectacular developments.

The three-page document, dated February 2, 2010, asks, “What If Foreigners See the United States as an ‘Exporter of Terrorism?’ ”

“These sorts of analytic products — clearly identified as coming from the agency’s ‘Red Cell’ — are designed to simply provoke thought and present different points of view,” said CIA spokesman George Little.

A U.S. intelligence official said, “it’s always disturbing when classified information is inappropriately disclosed.” However the official added, “this is not a blockbuster paper.”/.../

Vimeo

Vimeo is the video-streaming service of choice for creative types — the indie darling to YouTube's blockbuster. For casual viewers, Vimeo is the place for shorter, artsier clips. Search for "President" and you'll find yourself watching a humorous animated pop-up book that catalogs George W. Bush's presidency. Enter the same term into YouTube and you'll find relevant music videos and old news clips. See the difference? The site recently announced a new embeddable HTML5 player, compatible with Apple devices that don't support Flash, and a new Vimeo channel for Roku set-top boxes that streams staff picks as well as your account's queue straight to your TV.